Aerial advertising has been utilized for many years. Aerial advertising systems include skywriting, signs and logos on the sides of dirigibles, parachutists with indices on their canopies or having banners suspended from them during flight, and banners towed behind fixed-wing airplanes or suspended from slower moving aircraft such as helicopters, dirigibles, and balloons. Aerial advertising displays can be seen by many people at gatherings such as outdoor concerts, sporting events, carnivals, shows, celebrations, and by other members of the public outdoors, such as at the beach, park, in the city, or just walking around the streets.
Unfortunately, conventional aerial advertising systems suffer from a number of problems. For example, banners towed behind airplanes need to be relatively long and thin to minimize the drag to the airplane. Thus, many airplane banners are single line messages in plain font with little or no space to display flags, logos, devices, or signs. In addition, the high air speed of airplanes means that the message being displayed is not in the field of view of most spectators for very long. Furthermore, the use of fixed-wing airplanes is costly and they generally have restricted corridors in which the can fly over cities further limiting the time in which the advertising display is in the field of view of spectators.
Slower moving aircraft such as helicopters and airships are often allowed greater access to airspace over cities. These slower moving aircraft are more maneuverable and are often able to be better positioned for viewing by spectators. Furthermore, the lower airspeed of the aircraft enables the aircraft and hence the advertising display to stay in the field of view of spectators for greater lengths of time. Unfortunately, the amount of work and planning to fabricate a banner, flag, parachute canopy, airship skin, airfoil, and the like is complicated and expensive. That is, artwork, images, photographs, and verbiage must be applied onto the surface of the canopy, airship skin, or airfoil by stitching, silk-screening, airbrushing, and/or painting. The time to accomplish such a process can vary between many hours to many months. Furthermore, once it is complete, the applied artwork, images, photographs, and verbiage simply cannot change, are limited in creativity, and cannot be seen at night. Hence, these conventional aerial advertising techniques have limited appeal in the advertising markets.
Some airships or other inflatable structures have utilized airship displays, such as computerized electronic display or light boards which may be mounted on one or each side of the airship. These airships tend to draw spectator attention and are very memorable. Thus, they can serve as effective advertising tools. The display or light board systems typically utilize hundreds of lamps or light-emitting diodes (LEDs) which are turned on or off to create the desired image. In some instances, this process has been automated using computer programs to display corporate logos, messages, and simple animations. In other display systems, the lamps or LEDs are replaced with end-lit fiber optic cables arranged in a matrix and individually illuminated to produce a pixel-like image or display. Unfortunately, these systems utilize a large matrix of light emitting devices (LEDs or fiber optic cables). Consequently, they are not acceptable for real-time or pre-recorded video projection. Rather, they are more suitable for use in displaying stationary graphics and scrolled text. Furthermore, the weight of the lamps, cabling, and other onboard electronic components limit the projection display area and make these systems very heavy. Moreover, the operation of these aerial display devices is prohibitively expensive for many businesses.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for the aerial display of information content that draws spectator attention, can display a variety of still and moving images, is versatile, readily implemented, and cost effective.